Evolutionary Engineering of E. coli MG1655 for Tolerance Against Isoprenol

Isoprenol is the basis for industrial flavor and vitamin synthesis and also a promising biofuel. Biotechnological production of isoprenol with E. coli is currently limited by the high toxicity of the final product. Adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) is a promising method to address complex biological problems such as toxicity.Results: Here we applied this method successfully to evolve E. coli towards high tolerance against isoprenol, increasing growth at the half-maximal inhibitory concentration by 47 %. Whole-genome re-sequencing of strains isolated from three replicate evolutions at seven different time-points identified four major target genes for isoprenol tolerance: fabF, marC, yghB and rob.